$1.22 tn USD – This is not the budget of any country. According to Statista, it is the estimated revenue of the online food delivery market in the year 2024. So, are you still finding some valid reasons to start your food delivery app?
Today, some of the most popular food delivery apps like Uber Eats and Doordash, hold near to 50% of the market share. Looking at the phenomenal success of these apps, a lot of businesses and startups have initiated to start the online food delivery business. And to your surprise apps like Deliveroo, Zomato, Grubhub, Dunzo, Just Eat, Delivery Hero, Meituan, etc. are doing great in their businesses.
Since the lockdown, online food delivery services have significantly disrupted the entire food delivery industry. Several hotels restaurants and food business owners have upgraded their business models by establishing online food delivery services. The reason is these apps can focus more on customers and are more functional. Today’s blog will guide you on how to create a food delivery app from business as well as technical aspects.
Why You Should Invest in Food Delivery App Development?
We know that coronavirus and quarantine have been the major triggers that flourished the food delivery app market. However, looking at the present reality, the demand for food delivery apps has surged from a different perspective. Consumers love ordering food online from the confines of their cozy homes and busy office routines. With this, the competition is rapidly growing. The benefit here is a huge gap in the supply and demand of competitive food delivery apps.
Currently, food delivery applications are minting money, enabling a gradual and consistent improvement. Developing a robust food delivery app needs a lot of expertise and experience. The below table will give you a complete justification of why you should start your own food delivery app business in the USA.
| Apps | Revenue | Monthly users |
|---|---|---|
|
Doordash |
$8.15 bn |
32 million |
|
GrubHub |
1.82 bn |
31 mn |
|
Uber Eats |
8.3 bn |
88 mn |
|
Postmates |
$1 bn |
9.3 mn |
|
Instacart |
2.55 bn |
34 mn |
Different Types of Food Delivery Business Models
You can use a food delivery app even for a single restaurant or multiple restaurants, fast food chains, or cafes. There are several variations and models that you must know before you decide to start this business. This is because the application can have a variety of components and a project development lifecycle based on your choice.
So, while considering the best way to create your food delivery app, you must know that there are three types of food delivery business models. They are:
Aggregators with Logistics
This model plays the role of an intermediary between customers and restaurants. Dining restaurants and such establishments can find prospective customers from this app and users can order food from their favorite restaurants. Once the order is placed, the entire order gets redirected to the specific restaurant that is making the food and is responsible for packing the order. The driver is provided by the aggregator. He picks up the food and delivers it to the customer. These apps earn money by charging commissions from the restaurants, food chains, and cafes to whom the orders go. An example is DoorDash.
Aggregators without Logistics
The apps developed by such aggregators do not provide delivery services. When the user places an order from the app, it gets redirected to the restaurant. Further, from here the aggregator takes the commission and it is over. Creating such an app does not need more money. Also, you are not required to hire your fleet or couriers. The wise decision would be to start with this model just like what Grubhub did initially. And then turn on into Aggregators with a logistics model.
Hybrid Food Delivery Solutions
This is the third type of model that provides delivery options to restaurants as well as to clients. Here the food delivery app aggregates the restaurants and offers its delivery fleet. To be precise, with this solution, you can manage the entire delivery process from helping restaurants get customers to delivering the food to the users through your staff. The app will charge fees from restaurants as well as from customers for delivery services. This option is suitable for restaurants that do not want to create their food delivery application. Rather, they would partner up with Uber Eats or Door Dash-like apps to deliver the orders that they get within the app.
Top Features of Any Food Delivery App Development
Developing a food delivery application without understanding the kind of features that it needs is like beating around the bush. Every kind of app needs tailored features and functionalities. From simple to complicated meal delivery apps consist of different components like end-users, restaurants and cafes, and couriers. So let us understand the kind of features for each of them:
Food Delivery App Feature for Customers
Sign up/Sign in
Users can create an account in your app and sign in whenever needed.
Restaurant Search
You can use this feature in many different ways. Users should ultimately be able to find restaurants through different ways like searching location-wise, cuisine-wise, food item-wise, etc.
Placing Orders
Allows users to place the order after selecting food and then make an order.
Profile/Account page
Users sign in to your application by entering some basic details like name, delivery address, and maybe payment details.
Integrated Online Payment
Once the user puts an order within your app, the very next step is making a payment by the user. Here you can provide different payment options by integrating with popular payment gateways like Google Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, Stripe, etc. based on the location where you will provide your application.
Order Tracking
It helps track the status of the order made in real-time
Notifications
Customers remain informed about their order status and get notified about special offers, discounts, etc.
History of Orders
Users can access their previous orders from your app and it can help them reorder the same order without hassles.
Loyalty Programs
Helps retain customers through special offerings and discounts. For that, you can build a loyalty program and integrate it into different sources by applying strategic rules.
Food Delivery App Features for Restaurants
For building food delivery app features for restaurants, you need to have similar features as above, except for a few.
Sign up/Sign in – Users can sign up and sign in to access the app
Account page – Basic details about their restaurant and business
Content Management – Managing the type of menu and food items they provide to the customers including rates and discounts
Order Management – For managing various orders and timelines within which they need to deliver
Payment Receiving – Different payment gateways and details of the payment received from the users after deducting commissions.
Order History – History of orders they get and food delivery made.
Loyalty Program – Loyalty program for the restaurants to enable long-term association.
Revenue Dashboard – Providing revenue breakdown for the restaurants enabling them to keep track of earnings they do over some time on a monthly and daily basis.
Food Delivery App Features for Couriers
For building food delivery app features for restaurants, you need to have similar features as above, except for a few.
Sign up/Sign in
You can register an account by integrating it with social login options like Google and Facebook.
Pick-up management
Couriers can manage the pick-up, track the locations, and estimate the delivery time as per the traffic and distance.
Order Status
Shows the list of orders available and the delivery details.
Order History
Helps access the whole history of orders by using various filtering options.
How Can You Create a Food Delivery App? - A Step-by-Step Guide
Establish the USP
Finding a Unique Selling Proposition should be the first step in creating a food delivery app. It can be anything that users have not received so far. For instance, delivering food faster, offering a wider range of cuisines, providing real-time tracking of orders, or any other unique feature that differentiates from other food delivery apps. To establish a perfect USP, there are food delivery app development companies that help clients identify it, ensuring that it aligns with the preferences of the target audience.
Analyse Target Audience
While you find out the USP, you will also simultaneously begin to analyze the needs, choices, buying patterns, and behavior of your target audience. You will have to undergo several types of market research, collect customer data, and find out the latest trends that reflect your target audience preferences. Hence, this step is very crucial before you begin to develop a food delivery app. In addition, determining your competitors, understanding their strengths and weaknesses, and knowing the opportunities and threats would help you develop a perfect strategy to develop appropriate market solutions.
Select The Business Model
According to the objective of your app, you will now need to pick the best business model and begin with your food delivery app services. As discussed in the above section, whatever business model you choose, you need to select the features and functionalities that you want in your app. Make sure that these features and functionalities create value and are helping you achieve your business goals.
Choose Reliable App Development Company
You may know a lot of technical aspects for developing a food delivery app, However, several experts and developers have the proficiency and caliber to develop a robust and user-centric food delivery app for your business. And that is why, you must hire a reliable mobile app development company that has a proven track record of developing exceptional mobile apps that have successfully provided enough profitability into the food delivery app business.
App Development Stage
Once you get settled down with the kind of features and functionalities you need in your food delivery app, now is the time to begin with the food delivery app development process. For this, you need to find a reputed food delivery app development company that can help you create an outstanding app. Below are the general stages of any app development:
Prototyping- According to your requirements, there is a team of experts who work on creating flow logic and application screens.
UI/UX Design – another team of UI/UX designers works on the interface of your app, building features and functionalities for the user’s view.
Development- In this stage, developers combine all the above aspects, bringing them together at one platform, and then begin building the actual product.
Testing and Publishing
Once the product is built, it needs to undergo rigorous testing and reviewing. For this, there is a quality assurance team that checks the app functionality and in case of any faults, would ask for corrections and improvements before the launch. This stage is very important as it ensures that everything is working seamlessly.
Once the product is built, it needs to undergo rigorous testing and reviewing. For this, there is a quality assurance team that checks the app functionality and in case of any faults, would ask for corrections and improvements before the launch. This stage is very important as it ensures that everything is working seamlessly.
Ongoing Maintenance and Support
Building a food delivery app is not just enough. Once users begin to use the app, it needs a lot of regular maintenance and constant support from the technical team. Hence, once the app is deployed into the market after making sure it meets all necessary guidelines and requirements, there is a team that provides ongoing maintenance. These updates will keep the app up-to-date, ensuring all the user needs are fulfilled.
What Are The Technical Aspects While Creating Food Delivery App For Business
To build a food delivery app, you need a combination of tools and technologies that will allow the app to perform effectively. So let us find out what kind of tech stack you need to pick. Below are the available choices:
Currently, food delivery applications are minting money, enabling a gradual and consistent improvement. Developing a robust food delivery app needs a lot of expertise and experience. The below table will give you a complete justification of why you should start your own food delivery app business in the USA.
| Category | Technologies |
|---|---|
|
Front-end Development |
Android SDK, iOS SDK (for native development), React Native, Flutter (for cross-platform development), React, SwiftUI (for UI framework)
|
|
Back-end Development |
Node.js, Python, and Java |
|
Database |
NoSQL, Cassandra, MongoDB |
|
Cloud Platforms |
Google Cloud Platform, AWS, and Azure |
|
Payment processing |
PayPal, Stripe, Braintree |
|
Real-time Communicaiton |
WebSockets and Firebase Database |
|
Push Notifications |
Firebase Cloud Messaging |
|
Mapping Services |
APIs from Mapbox, Google Maps, or Apple Maps |
Concluding Thoughts
As you consider all the above factors while deciding to develop a food delivery app, you must also consider food delivery app development costs. However, it is not easy to predict the exact cost of your app. You may use an app development cost calculator to determine a budget. To conclude, deciding to develop a food delivery app is one of the profitable businesses that will expand your services, enhance customer engagement, and boost revenues. All this will benefit in the long run. The above key things including choosing a suitable revenue model, features, and functionality, and considering various factors affecting budget must be considered.
Whitelotus Corporation has considerable experience in developing a full-cycle food delivery app. We have a team of expert developers who are eager to learn and explore the latest technologies and tools for building a robust food delivery app. We work for several domains to develop various types of mobile applications. At Whitelotus Corporation, we have a dedicated team of developers and designers who ensure quick time to market, tailored architecture, cost optimization, and build comprehensive food delivery apps straight from the support of certified specialists.
